Jenny Rivera, a judge on the New York State Court of Appeals, will deliver the Commencement address for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. The law school Commencement service will take place at 10 a.m. May 9 in Carmichael Arena.
UNC School of Law Dean John Charles Boger will preside during the ceremony. Rivera was chosen by a committee of law students from the graduating class.
Rivera was appointed to the Court of Appeals in February 2013. She has spent her entire professional career in public service. Rivera clerked for the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, in the Southern District of New York, and she also clerked in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Pro Se Law Clerk's Office. She worked for the Legal Aid Society's Homeless Family Rights Project, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (renamed Latino Justice PRLDEF), and was appointed by the New York State attorney general as special deputy attorney general for civil rights. Rivera has been an administrative law judge for the New York State Division for Human Rights and served on the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Prior to her appointment, she was a tenured faculty member of the City University of New York School of Law, where she founded and served as director of the Law School's Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality. Rivera received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and her LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law.
Learn more about UNC School of Law's 2015 Commencement.
-March 31, 2015